


Favors

by santanico



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age II
Genre: F/M, Friendship/Love, Gen, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-27
Updated: 2015-05-27
Packaged: 2018-04-01 12:02:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,292
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4019011
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/santanico/pseuds/santanico
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In desperate attempts to seek out peace, Anders loves deeply.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Favors

**Author's Note:**

> For #AndersPostive on tumblr, mostly because I have a lot of feelings and was reading dialogue stuff and crying a lot?
> 
> Fic contains a lot of relatively "shippy" things that I didn't want to tag because they aren't the main aspect but, in order of appearance. Some are way more platonic, some are romantic, some are some weird mix.
> 
> Warden Commander (f!Surana)/Anders  
> Awakening!Justice/Anders  
> Nathaniel/Anders  
> Karl/Anders  
> Isabela/Anders  
> Merrill/Anders  
> Bethany/Anders  
> Fenris/Anders  
> m!Hawke/Anders

The Warden Commander is an elven mage with tired eyes and dark brown skin. She laughs at his jokes and is well-loved by everyone; even Valenna, who stares at her like Surana comes from the territory of enemies, grows fond of the Commander.

She refuses to let the Templars take him back, and defends him every step of the way. She doesn’t need to do that. He gives her no reason to trust him, as she finds him as flames are bursting out of his hands.

He desperately wants to kiss her, but never gets the chance. Maybe her heart is elsewhere. Maybe he just waits too long.

-

Justice is a mangled mess of a person, if one could even call it that.

Anders is intrigued.

Anders wants to understand.

What happens is far beyond anything he ever expected.

-

Nathaniel never says anything but sometimes they share a tent.

Nathaniel drinks wine straight from the bottle and offers it to Anders with a lopsided grin, and Anders takes it a drinks deeply. When Nathaniel finally kisses him, there’s a lot of clinging, a few gasps, and the nothing more.

They sleep with their backs touching, and don’t mention it again.

Still, Anders smiles because Nathaniel is a friend and in another life, he's something else entirely.

-

He remembers Karl, and the memories that return when he sees his lover with the mark burned into his forehead are a combination of ecstasy and the worst pain imaginable.

 _Stay_ , he hears Karl whisper into his ear. _We can figure this out._ He had, until they couldn’t.

He mourns Karl’s death, but in ways, he mourns his own lost years as well.

-

Isabela kisses him in the Hanged Man and he says, “You know, that electricity thing...” and she laughs.

“Don’t care,” she mutters, tugging at his coat. “Come on, Anders. Anders, Anders, Anders.” She seems to love saying his name. For a moment, he appreciates the sound of it on her lips, sweet and drawn out. “We’re renegades. Tonight, let’s be something else.”

He dips his nose down to brush against her neck, and lifts her by her thighs.

Isabela is more than whispers at night, and he learns her eagerly. She's beautiful - and like everyone else Anders has had the misfortune of falling in love with, she belongs to no one but herself.

-

Merrill defends him when she doesn’t have to.

It gnaws at him, but still, she smiles.

Occasionally they’ll sit in the Alienage, and Merrill will tuck her legs to her chest and sigh. “The Circle frightens me.”

“As it should,” he says, sitting down in the dirt beside her. He could be at the clinic. He could be lying on an old cot. Instead he’s here, looking at an elven blood mage, and feeling an ache in his heart he can’t seem to shake off. “The Circle is a prison.”

Merrill sighs. “The Alienage is a prison, too,” she whispers, and he nods.

Solidarity. What else can they have?

-

Bethany is bright.

Bethany is _hope_.

She finds him at his clinic, throws her arms around him. He almost pulls back, recoils at the shock of it, but instead he hugs her, careful not to be too tight. She’s still young, vulnerable, her brother’s death fresh in her mind, fear of Templars in every corner.

“I saw them in the Gallows,” she chokes out. “Templars, shoving a mage down to the ground. They kicked her, yelled nasty words. No one stopped them. ” She shakes her head, and he can feel her tears soaking through his clothes, sense her crying against him. “I didn’t know who to come to. I didn't even do anything, I feel so...You’re the only one who understands.”

He momentarily thinks of perhaps asking about Hawke, but knows that’s not what she means.

Hawke will never be a mage. This struggle will never be understood.

He presses his lips to the top of her head, remembers how she had once told him he reminded her of her father. He wonders if Malcolm Hawke had been brave. “Bethany. You should go home. It’s dangerous here.”

“I’m not a child,” she sniffs, and he chuckles at the defiance in her voice.

“Your brother will worry,” he says.

“My brother trusts you.”

Anders smiles, and gives her a small squeeze.

-

Fenris is a shock.

He disappears.

He glows.

The word 'radiant' comes to mind; albeit, it's followed by a sense of disgust, and Justice stirs with anger when Anders thinks about Fenris too much.

Perhaps it’s better not to dwell on the former slave with trust issues and a general fear of magic, but Anders finds himself gazing occasionally. Which earns him quick glares or looks of confusion and frustration.

He knows. It’s strange. Fenris discomfort makes sense.

Maybe it’ll eventually fade into something softer.

-

He lies awake at night arguing with Justice in soft mutters.

“He cares, he does.”

But Justice is loud, and insistent.

So Anders closes his eyes and accepts that he won’t ever be free, not really, and that Hawke won’t ever come close. Except Hawke doesn’t stop, no matter how many reasons Anders gives him not to.

It’s not - it’s not a persistence, exactly. Anders is baffled because Hawke seems to understand and respect Anders’ need for space. He leaves when Anders asks for as much, and he doesn’t argue with anything more than an _I don’t care_ when Anders chafes and claims he’s unlovable.

 _Show me_.

It’s enough to change everything. He kisses Hawke until they’re both breathless, and he hopes.

To come into that house, to find Hawke waiting for him in front of the fire, quiet and smiling - it’s a gift.

Anders gives Hawke every possible chance to change his mind. 

But Hawke just keeps diving down deeper.

“You know,” Anders says, tugging at the loose fabric of Hawke’s clothes. Hawke works to unlace and unbutton Anders’ coat, the shirt he wears underneath, the laces of his pants. “If you’ll let me, I’ll be here until the end.”

Hawke looks at him, resting his hands on Anders’ chest, and then grins. “I’ve been hoping to hear you say that. Am I still a distraction?”

Anders smiles, leaning down to mouth at Hawke’s throat and then his jaw. “I think you’ll always be,” he murmurs, his heartbeat speeding up and the press of Justice in his consciousness becoming more and more obvious. “But sometimes...” He pauses, draws out the words as he presses kisses along Hawke’s Adam’s apple, then down to his collar bones where he drags his teeth along the skin. Hawke shudders beneath him. “Sometimes distractions can be...helpful.” Justice thrums, warm and bright, and Anders grins.

Compromise - if he can have this, anything can happen.

Isabela teaches him how to cheat at cards, says she just wants to see Hawke humiliated by someone other than herself.

Wicked Grace at its best; Hawke red in the face and down to his smallclothes, Merrill giggling in the corner and Fenris biting back a smile.

Anders knows he _deserves_ this - as much as anything.

Crawling under sheets or lying on top of them; doesn’t make a damned difference.

“I missed you,” Hawke says with a laugh, stepping in from the rain, wrapping his arms around Anders’ waist. Anders believes him, kisses him.

There are days when Anders doesn’t believe in the Maker, wonders if Merrill is right about storytelling and demons and spirits because even when Justice works him until his bones ache and he’s sobbing on the floor, he still _loves_ him.

And there are days when Anders thinks he’s found a god all on his own, something so sacred that he’d be lost without it.

Kirkwall hurts.

But Kirkwall is home.


End file.
